Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5) (21 page)

“Before we go over that wall, there’s something important you need to know,” she said.

He grinned. “I already know you love me—remember?”

She couldn’t help smiling in return, even if her heart was thudding so hard in her chest it was almost painful. “I do love you, but this is something different. Something I should have told you long before now.”

He must have picked up on the urgency in her tone because the smile left his face. “What is it?”

She took a deep breath, wishing she could come up with a better way—a better time—to say it. But there was no better time or place. There was just now, only minutes before Dylan and the others created a distraction and kicked off the mission. She had to trust that Jayson’s love for her was enough to get them through this.

“Jayson, do you remember Zarina giving you a shot before Dick’s doctors injected you with the hybrid serum?”

He looked confused for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. It was a gamma globulin. She said it would boost my immune system.”

Layla shook her head. “It wasn’t a shot to boost your immune system. It was an antidote that Zarina had developed for Tanner in the hope that it could change him back into a regular person. She wasn’t planning to give it to you, but she had no choice. She was terrified you’d end up like all the dead hybrids the DCO has found, so she gave you the antidote hoping to save your life.”

Jayson looked stunned. “What are you saying?”

She knew her eyes were now glowing vivid green, reminding him of exactly what she was—and what he wasn’t.

“I’m saying you’re not a hybrid and you’re not indestructible. You need to know that before we go over that wall.”

Ivy was sitting in a comfortable chair in Dreya Clark’s living room waiting for the feline shifter to come home when she heard footsteps heading down the hallway. She breathed a sigh of relief as she picked up the other shifter’s scent. After seeing what had happened in Columbia Heights with Thorn’s goons, she wasn’t sure Dreya would come back to her apartment in Foggy Bottom. There had been an equally good chance she’d bolt and find another place to hide. Hell, there was still a chance the shifter would bail when she smelled Ivy and realized there was someone in her apartment. Ivy hoped not. The woman was scared enough already and chasing her wouldn’t help.

Ivy drew her SIG 9mm and rested it on the table beside the chair, keeping her hand on the grip. She hated the idea of having the gun out in plain sight when Dreya walked through the door, but Ivy wasn’t sure how this meeting was going to go down or if the other shifter had a weapon.

Once they’d gotten Dreya’s name, Adam’s people had been able to track her down within a couple hours. Ivy had swung by the thief’s jewelry shop first, but it had been locked up tight. She’d been heading to her apartment next when she got a call from a man with a deep voice who told her that Dreya Clark had a safe house under another name in Columbia Heights and that was where Ivy would find her.

Ivy had gotten there just in time to see Thorn’s men corner Dreya in the alley. Ivy had been about to jump in when a huge guy charged in like a bull and crushed both of them. Even though she couldn’t pick up his scent, the man was too big and fast to be anything other than a shifter. She suspected he was one of Adam’s people but didn’t have a chance to confirm it. She couldn’t let Dreya get away. She only hoped Dreya would let her talk before the inevitable fight-or-flight instinct kicked in.

Dreya opened the door and was ten steps into the living room before catching sight of Ivy. The blond shifter stopped short, eyeing Ivy—and the gun—suspiciously. Her blue eyes darted around the room, as if calculating the odds of reaching cover before Ivy could shoot her.

She must have decided her chances weren’t that good because she didn’t move. Dreya was nervous, no doubt. Two men had just tried to Taser and kidnap her.

“Are you the one who’s been torturing and killing all my friends?” Dreya asked.

“No.” Ivy stood, then slowly picked up her gun and made a show of putting it back in its holster. If Dreya had a weapon, she would have pulled it out already. “That would be Thorn’s personal security, a man named Douglas Frasier. Those two men who cornered you in that alley in Columbia Heights worked for him, too.”

Dreya’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know anyone named Thorn. I think you’ve made a mistake.”

Ivy almost smiled. She didn’t know why, but she liked Dreya. Maybe because she reminded her of Layla—whom, according to Kendra, had found Jayson and would be on her way home soon. Dreya seemed to have that same kind of clever innocence about her that Layla possessed. Too bad she’d gotten herself involved with stuff that put her on Thorn’s bad side.

“I know you have absolutely no reason to believe this, but I’m here to help you,” Ivy said. “You stole something from a very powerful person and if we can’t figure out a way to get him off your trail, you’re going to end up dead like your friends.”

Dreya folded her arms and lifted her chin. “It wasn’t me. I’ve never stolen anything. Like I said, you have the wrong person.”

“Wrong person, huh?” Ivy snorted. “That wasn’t you who broke into Thomas Thorn’s mansion over near Embassy Row a few nights ago? It wasn’t you who came over the back wall and climbed the side of the three-story structure like it was nothing? Or ran along the ridgeline of the roof, somehow walking on those terracotta tiles without breaking any of them, then slipping in through a third-story window?”

Ivy went on to describe exactly how Dreya had moved around Thorn’s library, right down to where she’d walked and what she’d touched.

Dreya blanched. “You were outside Thorn’s place that night, weren’t you? You were the one I smelled as I was climbing on my bike. Why didn’t you stop me then? Or come after me?”

“I couldn’t care less that you stole something from the man, but now Thorn is after you and I can’t stand around and do nothing while he tries to kill you.”

Dreya chewed on her lower lip, considering that. “So what are you doing here if you don’t work for Thorn? You want a cut or something?”

“No, I don’t want a cut,” Ivy said. “I want to help you get away.”

Dreya regarded her warily. “Why would you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”

Ivy shrugged. “Let’s just say we have a lot in common, not the least of which is a great dislike of Thomas Thorn and the way he does things. I have no interest in seeing someone like Thorn and his goons get away with killing you. And that’s what will happen if he doesn’t get back what belongs to him.”

Dreya’s eyes darted to the window.

“If you make a run for it, I won’t try to stop you,” Ivy said. “We both know you’ll survive the fall easily enough, even from this high up. Sure, with all the trash cans, AC units, and bikes down there, you’ll almost certainly break a few bones, but I don’t imagine it will hurt as badly as what Thorn’s men will do to you when they catch you. You know as well as I do that the only reason you got away in that alley earlier is because you had a guardian angel out there watching over you. He killed those men and Thorn will never have a clue what happened to them or where they went. But that big guy won’t be there every time, especially not if you go on the run. Thorn will come after you. And he’s not going to stop until he gets what he’s after. Be smart and give me what you stole from Thorn.”

“How do I know you won’t just kill me the moment you get what you want?”

“Because I give you my word.”

That was the best Ivy could do.

Dreya stared at her for a long time, then let out a sigh. Shaking her head, she walked into the kitchen. Ivy had thought a thief like Dreya would hide the diamond and whatever else she’d stolen from Thorn somewhere better than her refrigerator.

But Dreya didn’t open the fridge. Instead, she pulled it smoothly out of the cubby in the wall, then slipped behind it and slid a piece of paneling aside to reveal the front of a combination safe. The woodwork had been done so seamlessly that Ivy would have had a hard time finding it on her own, even with her shifter senses.

Dreya flipped through the combination quickly, then yanked open the door and reached inside. Ivy had about a half second to wonder if the other shifter was going to come out with a gun, but when Dreya turned around, all she held was a big, beautiful diamond on a long, gold chain. Dreya tossed it across the room, forcing Ivy to snatch it out of the air before it smashed against the wall.

“You’ve got what you came here for,” the shifter said. “Now you can leave.”

“Not until you give me what else you stole.”

Dreya swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ivy tightened her grip on the diamond. She didn’t want to get in a staring contest, but the longer they hung around, the more likely Thorn’s people would find out where Dreya was and come looking for her.

“I don’t know what else you took when you grabbed that diamond, but whatever it is, it has Thorn behaving more viciously than I’ve ever see him. And trust me, I’ve seen him be really frigging nasty,” Ivy said. “I know you have family in town, and as soon as Thorn figures out exactly who you are, he won’t have a problem going after the people closest to you. Is that what you want?”

Dreya’s eyes filled with pain. Turning back to the safe, she reached inside and took out a small, black, rectangular-shaped box. For a moment, Ivy thought it was a jewelry box, but when the other shifter walked over and handed it to her, she realized it was too heavy and solid for that. There wasn’t a hinge or any way to open it, either. There was only some kind of recessed, multipin connector on one side and an irregular hole like something a key would fit into on the other.

“What is it?” Ivy asked.

Dreya shrugged. “Beats me. I thought it was some kind of hard drive, but if it is, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen and I don’t know how to get it open.”

Ivy stared at the thing in her hand. “If you didn’t know what it was, why did you take it?”

The blond shifter smiled. “It was in a fancy safe with a fancy diamond. I figured it must be valuable. Plus, I figured it would piss off the rich asshole if I took it. It’s one of the benefits of my chosen career path—pissing off rich people.”

“Until you piss off the wrong one,” Ivy said.

Dreya snorted. “So you’re just going to give this stuff back to Thorn, and that’s it—he leaves me alone?”

“I wish,” Ivy said. “No. For this to work, I’m going to have to make sure that the person who took this stuff is dead.”

Dreya’s eyes widened.

Ivy laughed. “Good thing you’re not the person who took it.”

Dreya visibly relaxed. “So…what do I do?”

“Get out of town for a while, at least until everything is cleaned up,” Ivy suggested. “And when you come back, you might want to think about staying away from men like Thorn.”

Pocketing the diamond and the little black box, she turned and headed for the door.

“Hey!” Dreya called. “That’s it? You’re just going to walk out without even telling me your name?”

Ivy stopped at the door and turned back to look at the feline shifter. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. I get the feeling we’re going to meet again soon. I’ll tell you my name then. Take my advice and get out of town, okay?”

Dreya nodded.

Without another word, she turned and walked out, closing the door softly behind her. On the way down the stairs, she called Landon and let him know that she’d found Dreya and had Thorn’s stuff.

“What the hell did she have besides the diamond?” Landon asked.

Ivy climbed into the SUV and cranked the engine. “I think it’s some kind of electronic storage media, like a hard drive. I’m going to show it to the techs at the complex. If it’s some kind of storage drive, they’ll know how to get the info off it.”

“If you’re right about that being some kind of hard drive, you know what this means, don’t you?”

She laughed as she pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the beltway. “It means we have Thorn by the balls and all we have to do is twist. Make sure Hayes stays away from Dreya Clark, then get your sexy butt down to the complex. This is all coming together fast.”

“I’m on it.” Landon chuckled. “Holy shit, I’m on it.”

* * *

Jayson felt like he was sinking in quicksand. He’d already told himself that the hybrid serum hadn’t worked and that he’d gained little if anything from taking it. He’d been okay with that and had come to accept that what he’d done since arriving in Donetsk was more about the power of his will and his commitment to Layla than some crazy miracle drug. Finding out that the serum hadn’t even had a chance to work because Zarina had dosed him with something that kept it from ever being a possibility made him angry as hell. He felt betrayed…cheated.

Shit
.

They didn’t have time for this. Dylan, Mikhail, Olek, and their friends were going to be ramming that car into the gate any minute now. But Jayson had to know.

“Why would Zarina inject me with something like that without telling me?” he asked softly.

Layla closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the green glow was gone. All that was left in the darkness was overwhelming sadness. She hadn’t wanted to tell him about this, he realized. If he hadn’t made that crack about trying to leap up on the wall like a shifter, she probably never would have.

“Zarina knew that serum would almost certainly kill you—or worse, turn you into a monster that even you wouldn’t recognize,” Layla said. “She used the only thing she had that might stop it. Considering the fact that you were willing to die for a chance at having a normal life again, she didn’t see much point in telling you about the antidote in advance.”

“Did you know she was going to do it?” he asked.

Layla shook her head. “No. When you walked in with Dick all ready to take the drug, she didn’t have time to call me and ask what she should do. She had to act. But if I had been there, or if she’d been able to reach me, I would have told her to give you the antidote. Even if you hated me for it later, I would have told her to do it. Because while you needed more from your life than you had, all I needed was you. And if it means that I’m selfish for wanting you alive, then so be it.”

Jayson started to say that it wasn’t her decision to make, but the words died in his throat. Suddenly, he felt like he was the one being selfish, not to mention frigging stupid. Layla was completely right. He’d been willing to die rather than keep living with the injuries he’d sustained in Afghanistan because he thought those injuries were keeping him from living the life he wanted. But since coming on this mission, he discovered it had always been within his power to decide what kind of life he ended up living. It had just taken him time—and Layla’s love—to figure that out.

In return for this wonderful gift, all Layla had ever asked was that he simply not give up, that he stay here in the world with her whether he was whole or not. And here he was making her feel like there was something wrong with that. Of all the people who had done things wrong in this situation, Layla wasn’t one of them.

Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them back. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him.

“There’s nothing selfish about not wanting me to take a drug that could have killed me, or being happy Zarina gave me something that kept me safe,” he said hoarsely. “And if I made you feel any differently, I’m sorry. I got stupid there for a second, thinking about what could have been instead of what I already have. Again—I’m sorry.”

Layla tipped her head back and stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him. Time stopped for a moment as their lips touched, and he was reminded once again that he had already gained the only thing of any real value that could have come from taking that serum—Layla.